Ebola: Timeline of an epidemic

Key dates in the latest Ebola epidemic, the worst ever outbreak of the haemorrhagic fever which first surfaced in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to the latest toll given by the World Health Organization (WHO), the epidemic has left 11,300 dead, mainly in the west African states of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, out of almost 29,000 cases.

– Epidemic starts in Guinea –
– December 6, 2013: A two-year-old child dies in southern Guinea and is later identified as “patient zero”. The virus remains localised until February 2014, when a careworker in a neighbouring province dies.

– Ebola begins to spread –
– On March 31, 2014 two cases are confirmed by the WHO in Liberia, while on May 26 Sierra Leone confirms its first case, to be followed in late July by Nigeria, in August by Senegal and in October by Mali. Senegal and Nigeria are declared free of Ebola in October 2014 while Mali is declared Ebola-free in January 2015.

– May 30, 2014: Ebola is “out of control”, according to the aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF). The three worst-hit countries, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, declare measures including states of emergency and quarantines. Many neighbouring nations close their borders with the affected countries.

– A ‘public health emergency’ –
– August 8, 2014: The WHO declares Ebola a “public health emergency of international concern”. Four days later it authorises the use of experimental drugs to fight Ebola after an ethical debate. That day, a Spanish missionary infected in Liberia dies in Madrid, the first European fatality.

– Death in the US –
– September 30, 2014: A Liberian man is hospitalised in the US state of Texas, the first Ebola infection diagnosed outside Africa. He dies on October 8.

October 6, 2014: A Spanish nurse in a Madrid hospital becomes the first person to be infected outside Africa. She is treated and given the all-clear on October 19.